


mɑr·mɔr·ɑ

by GemmaRose



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Oral History, Origin Story, Story within a Story, Storytelling, blade of marmora, story no longer looks like a word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-28
Packaged: 2019-02-08 00:21:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12852687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: “I’ve been wondering. Why are you guys called the Blade of Marmora?”“That, is a story which has only ever been told to children of the Blade.”“Oh, okay.”“Which I believe your friend Keith is. And I suppose there is no harm in his teammates learning the story as well.”





	mɑr·mɔr·ɑ

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sgtbaarnes (Thighz)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thighz/gifts).



“Hey, Kolivan?”

Kolivan lifted his eyes from writing down details about their last mission, and saw the Blue Paladin leaning over the back of the couch across from him between the heads of two younger Blades who were taking well-deserved naps. “Yes?” he prompted the alien, going back to his work. The Blue Paladin said nothing for a minute, and Kolivan looked up from his work again. “What is it?”

“I’ve been wondering.” The Blue Paladin said slowly, lips and eyebrows angled downwards in a look of confusion. “Why are you guys called the Blade of Marmora?”

Kolivan let himself smile slightly. The Paladins all seemed to hold a sort of childish fascination with his organisation, which was understandable given what he knew of their species. Shiro’s captured crew had been the first to leave their solar system, and they hadn’t even managed that under their own power. “That,” he said, setting his datapad down next to him. “Is a story which has only ever been told to children of the Blade.”

“Oh, okay.” the Blue Paladin seemed to deflate slightly.

“Which I believe your friend Keith is.” Kolivan continued, the Blue Paladin straightening up at his words. “And I suppose there is no harm in his teammates learning the story as well.”

“Really?” the Blue Paladin beamed. Kolivan nodded. “I’m gonna go get them.” he said quickly, and rushed out of the room. Orshan chuckled and sat up properly, ceasing to feign sleep.

“Going soft?” xi teased.

“No.” Kolivan refuted, keeping his voice even. “Humans are stubborn, the Blue and Green Paladins especially. Had I told only Keith, the others would have gotten the story from him. Better to let them have it straight from the source.”

Xi nodded, and Kolivan picked his datapad back up to resume working. It would be several doboshes at least, before the Paladins arrived, and in that time he could likely finish this report.

\---

“I heard you’re gonna tell us the Blade of Marmora origin story?”

“Once the rest of your team has arrived.” Kolivan replied, not looking up from his datapad. He’d finished the first report, but there was always more work to do.

“Can I sit here?” the Green Paladin asked, footsteps crossing the room towards the couches. Kolivan glanced up from his datapad, and saw them smallest Paladin indicating the end of the couch Kyrin and Orshan were sitting on. Kyrin nodded, curling his legs in towards himself and clearing the cushions for the little human. It didn’t take long for the rest to arrive, and Kolivan raised an eyebrow at the sight of Nadlat and the altean advisor in their midst.

“Is it okay that I brought Coran too?” the Blue Paladin asked, gesturing to the older alien.

“It is acceptable.” Kolivan nodded minutely, and set aside his datapad as the Paladins and altean found seats. The Black Paladin and royal advisor took up the smaller couch on his left, while Keith sprawled face-down across the one to his right. He and Nadlat, who had fallen onto the cushions between Orshan and the arm of the couch, both smelled of sweat. Kolivan made a mental note to ask Nadlat later if Keith’s swordsmanship was still improving at its previous rate. The Yellow and Blue Paladins seated themselves on the floor in front of their green-clad compatriot, and looked at him expectantly. Or, well, the Blue Paladin did. The Yellow Paladin simply looked put-out.

“I feel like a kid, sitting on the floor.” he grumbled.

“So go sit on Keith.” the Green Paladin suggested.

“But he’s sweaty.” the Yellow Paladin’s face scrunched up in disgust.

“Which is why he gets a loveseat to himself.” The Black Paladin grinned. Keith lifted a hand without raising his head, middle finger extended in a vulgar gesture both their cultures had developed to a similar meaning. Kolivan suppressed a chuckle, while Kyrin and most of the Paladins didn’t bother.

“Now that everyone is seated.” he said, drawing every eye to him but Keith’s, “Where should I begin?”

“The beginning.” Orshan said, before any of the Paladins could speak up. “You tell it best from the beginning.”

Kolivan gave xir an indulgent smile. “From the beginning it is a long tale.”

“We’ve got time.” the Black Paladin assured him. “And none of us know anything about the Blade’s founding, so we would be missing important context if you started in the middle.”

“Well, I’ve got my suspicions.” the advisor said, looking at Kolivan with an uncomfortably intense, unreadable expression. “But I’d like to hear your version in full before making any assumptions.”

“Well, then.” Kolivan sighed. Even through the mask, he could _feel_ Orshan smiling smugly at him. “I will tell it from the beginning.”

“Yes!” the Blue Paladin cheered, rocking back as he pumped a fist in the air. The Green Paladin kicked him in the back of the head, and Kolivan watched them silently until they stopped bickering.

“Sorry.” The Blue Paladin muttered, looking appropriately chastised under the heavy gazes of every authority figure in the room.

“Pidge?” the Black Paladin prompted.

“I’m sorry too, I guess.” the Green Paladin huffed, not sounding apologetic at all.

“Try not to interrupt the story.” Kyrin stage-whispered. “He gets grumpy if you interrupt him when he’s telling the story.”

“I think you mean grumpier.” the Yellow Paladin remarked.

Kolivan leaned forwards slightly, resting his elbows on his knees, and the Yellow Paladin balked under his gaze.

“Sorry.” he squeaked.

Kolivan nodded, scanning the group, then sat back up and cleared his throat. “It all began thousands of deca-phoebs ago.” he intoned, closing his eyes.

\---

“On Daibazaal, the homeworld lost, there was a servant. Unremarkable in class, and look, and manner, xi served the Emperor dutifully. When called to do so, xi also served the Emperor’s clade, nobles from the Empire and the Alliance both. Xir station forbade him to speak to them, as was the law of the time, but xi yearned for more than xir servile class would allow xem. The Emperor informed his clade of the law, and for deca-phoebs they listened, addressing xir only in accordance with the manners of their own customs. Or rather, that is what most of them did.

“One of the nobles of the Alliance, King of his own world, believed not in boundaries of class, as his own people had no such custom. He addressed the servant as an equal, a peer, and refused Zarkon’s orders to cease and desist in his actions. For deca-phoebs the servant abided the law, kept xir silence, spurned every attempt at conversation made by the foreign king. One quintant, however the king cornered the servant and demanded xi speak to him. He ordered the servant answer a single question, yes or no.” Kolivan inhaled, eyes flicking over his rapt audience. “Would you like me to stop speaking to you?” he pitched his voice up slightly out of habit, affecting the slightly nasal accent of a Nalquod highborn.

He paused, letting his audience lean forwards slightly. Even Keith had sat up and was watching him with rapt attention. “No.” he lowered his voice slightly, imitating his sire’s accent.

“Then will you hold a conversation with me?” “If- if that is what you wish, Your Majesty.” “It is.” Kolivan switched between the voices as he told their conversation, one of the few which had been recorded word for word. “The servant knew it was a betrayal of the laws xi lived by, but after that xi did not avoid the king’s conversations.” he returned to using his own voice, keeping his tone level and cadence even. “In time, xi began to look forward to their talks, and even seek the king’s company when he was not in Zarkon’s presence. From these stolen moments grew a friendship, scandalous and secret. But of course, secrets cannot be kept forever.”

One of the Paladins gasped, a quick little intake of breath, and Nadlat sniggered softly.

“Their relationship was discovered by the packmate of one of xir spurned lovers, and within vargas it had reached even Emperor Zarkon’s ears. He ordered the servant executed-”

“No!” the Yellow Paladin cried, and was quickly hushed by his comrades.

“He ordered the servant executed,” Kolivan repeated, locking eyes with the Yellow Paladin for a solid tick before continuing. “But not a trace of the servant could be found. Nor could the foreign King be located anywhere in the vicinity. The king brought the servant to his planet, and xi was treated as a royal guest. Unable to return to xir own planet, the servant remained in the king’s palace for many deca-phoebs. In this time, xir friendship with the planet’s king became ever deeper, blooming in time into a romance which outshone even the stars.”

“Gaaaay.”  
“Shut up, Lance.”  
“You were thinking it too.”

Kolivan levelled his gaze at the Green and Blue Paladins, who were hissing arguments at each other, and waited patiently until Kyrin kicked the Green Paladin and both of them grew silent. “Many deca-phoebs passed before the king asked for the servant’s hand in marriage.” he continued once the Green and Blue Paladins had settled down fully, electing to skip the flowery descriptions of the proposal itself. “Zarkon did not approve, of course, but the rest of the regents of the Alliance attended the ceremony. The regents were soon called away, leaving the regensort to entertain-”

“Regensort?” the Black Paladin interrupted for the first time, looking confused as he sounded out the word slowly. Ah, right, the human language had only half as many pronouns as any dialect of Galran. It probably didn’t translate.

“A regent’s mate.” he explained. “Higher in status than anyone but the regent, and in that case nearly equal.”

“Oh, like how if a queen marries her girlfriend the girlfriend becomes queen-consort.” the Blue Paladin piped up.

“I thought the girlfriend became a princess.” Keith frowned.

“We can discuss politics later.” the altean advisor said, cutting off the Blue Paladin’s retort. “Kolivan, if you would be so kind as to continue?” he inclined his head briefly, and Kolivan nodded once.

“By all surviving accounts, the newly raised regensort entertained xir guests well into the night. Well enough that when the king returned, they had difficulty extricating themselves from the revelries to consummate their union.”

The Yellow Paladin made a choking noise, and Orshan sat forward as xir head turned towards him in clear concern.

“I think we can skip that part.” Keith said quickly, pink blotches high on his pale cheeks. Kolivan swallowed a chuckle. The three young Blades on the couch across from him showed no such restraint in their mirth.

“This tale is meant for kits’ ears.” he clarified.

“Thank god.” the Black Paladin muttered.

“Despite their efforts, it took many phoebs for the king and regensort to conceive an heir, and many more deca-phoebs after to successfully bear a second child.” the Paladins seemed to collectively exhale, and he made a mental note to ask their leader if reproduction was a particularly sensitive subject for their species once the tale had been told in full. “The young prince was nearly of age when the unthinkable happened.” he paused, allowing the tension to build for a few ticks before continuing.

“Nearly every galra on the king’s world turned on him and his people overnight, at a single order from Zarkon.” Kolivan didn’t bother keeping his voice even, here. “Throughout the palace, the capital, their whole world, the galra turned on the people who had taken them in and slaughtered them by the hundreds of thousands. Zarkon said he would order them to stop if the king surrendered himself.”

“And he did.” the Blue Paladin said with a strange sort of certainty. “He gave himself up so his people and family would live, didn’t he?”

“Yes.” Kolivan nodded solemnly. “While he was taken off-world, the regensort escaped with their children. They made it past the Imperial battleships on the crown princess’s skill, and halfway to one of their safehaven colony worlds on the younger prince’s.” Keith made a distressed sound, leaning forwards, and Nadlat made a similar chirr as she moved to sit at his side and card her claws through his hair.

“They were intercepted by a lone shuttle, piloted by Zarkon himself. He threw the regensort into the controls and slaughtered the heirs when they tried to defend xir.” Kolivan looked down at his knees, claws curling tight against his suit. “The regensort was no warrior, but xi picked up the king’s cutlass and brought it to bear against Zarkon.” he paused, breathing deep to dispel the tightness in his chest and throat. This part never got easier to tell. “Zarkon ripped the blade from xir hands and ran it through xir chest, leaving xir to bleed out slowly between the corpses of xir heirs with the knowledge that xir husband laid dead on an airless rock in the Dalterion Belt.”

“Can we just skip to the Blade of Marmora part?” the Yellow Paladin asked, looking vaguely ill and sounding far younger than any soldier Kolivan had ever met.

“The regensort did not die.” Kolivan said stiffly. “Propelled by hatred, he set course for a new haven. There, xi hid from Zarkon as xir wounds healed, surrounded by galra of xir birth class. Galra who had been treated better by their adoptive home and people than by the planet of their birth.” he forced himself to unclench his hands, running through the remainder of the story in his head. “It took phoebs to recover, and in those phoebs xi discovered something.” he smoothed out his tone, resuming his storytelling cadence.

“Xi was pregnant.”

“Wait, what?” the Green Paladin frowned. “How?”

“Let him finish the story, Pidge.” the altean advisor said, sounding almost distracted. His eyes never left Kolivan’s face. “I can show you the files on galran reproductive anatomy later.”

“Show Keith, too.” Nadlat said, and the altean nodded despite Keith’s inarticulate squawk of protest.

“Xi bore the child and raised them in secret, in hiding.” Kolivan said, silencing the room with a look. “When the Empire came to xir new home, xi ran once again. But this time, xi did not run with xir children alone. With xir clade, xi located a place to build a new home, far from the Empire’s reach. That home expanded as the clade grew, by blood and recruitment, and never again did the Empire touch xir home.” he scanned his audience, and only barely remembered not to lift his arm and gesture at their surroundings. “Xi was buried in the rock, with xir husband’s cutlass hung above the grave. To this day, that home is still inhabited by the descendants of xir clade. By the Blade of Marmora.”

When he stopped speaking, the silence hung in the air for several long ticks. The Paladins looked appropriately awed, and Keith especially looked thoughtful. Good, it would do him well to look into his heritage. And to bond with those who should have been his litter, even if they would now never be more than clade to him. He’d have to praise Nadlat for her initiative on that front.

“So, all of the Blades are descended from the founder and xir friends?” the Green Paladin asked, head tilting to the side.

“Not all, the Blade does on occasion recruit from the outside, but many of our number were born into this fight.”

“That’s... kinda sad.” the Blue Paladin frowned.

“No sadder than the kits born to litters raised in the military.” Orshan rebutted. “Raised to be officers without ever knowing empathy for those whose blood is less than perfectly pure.”

The Blue Paladin looked away, thoughtful.

“So, question.” the Black Paladin said, drawing Kolivan’s attention with a half-raised hand. “Obvious the Blade were named after the King’s cutlass, but which one was named Marmora, him or his spouse?”

“Neither.” Kolivan grinned, and the Paladins blinked in confusion nearly as one.

“So, why the name?” the Yellow Paladin asked, brow furrowing in confusion.

“The reasoning behind the name has been lost to the ages, but one thing is for sure. Even now, the Blade lives in xir memory, fighting to dismantle the Empire and bring equality to all galra, regardless of heritage.”

“Xi would approve.” the advisor said solemnly, and Kolivan turned to give the altean a considering gaze. If what he’d been told was true...

“You knew them, didn’t you.” he said, not asking but simply stating.

“Yes.” the altean nodded, drawing shocked stares from the other eight members of the audience, Paladins and young Blades alike. “The King’s name was Blaytz, and his spouse’s name was Maremra.”

“Blaytz?” the Blue Paladin’s face scrunched in confusion. “Have you talked about him before? I swear, his name sounds familiar.”

“I haven’t, but Blue may have. He was her previous Paladin, and the two of them were quite close.”

Well, there was a fact which had been lost to the ages. The Paladins and young Blades were chatting amongst themselves, and Kolivan was about to stand and gesture for the altean to follow him and talk elsewhere when the Green Paladin’s voice rose above the low din.

“Shut it!” they yelled, glaring at the others. “Hey, Coran, if you knew them, can you guess why they’re called the Blade of Marmora?”

“I can, actually.” the altean twirled the tip of his moustache with a fond smile. “After marrying Balytz, Maremra became something of a scholar. Could talk with Gyrgan and Laura for hours about the histories of the system’s civilisations and the minutia of early space flight.” he chuckled, and the Yellow Paladin made a face.

“ _Please_ no tangents.” he wheedled.

The advisor shut his mouth, gave the Paladin a calculating look, then smiled brightly. “I would never.” he pressed a hand to his chest in an action so over the top there was no conceivable way his words were genuine. The Paladins looked unimpressed by the evident lie, and the advisor deflated slightly. “Well, while xi was studying cultural and technical history, Maremra developed a love of ancient languages. In particular, xi was fond of an ancient dialect of Galran which was the root of several extant dialects.”

“Holy shit.” the Green Paladin breathed, eyes wide and all but literally sparkling with wonder. “Coran are you telling me there’s _Galran Latin_?”

“Galran Latin? Really, Pidge?” the Blue Paladin said drily.

“Shut up, Lance it’s accurate.”

“If Latin is a language which is itself dead but spawned multiple others, then yes, I suppose you could call this Galran Latin.” the advisor gave the Paladin an indulgent grin.

“Does the castle have enough records to learn it?” the Green Paladin leaned forwards, and Kolivan had to bite back a chuckle at the display of unbridled childish glee.

“You know, I’m not sure.” the altean tapped his chin with a thoughtful look, then smiled brightly. “But we can certainly check!”

“Yes!” the Green Paladin punched the air.

“ _After_ you finish telling the story, right Coran?” the Yellow Paladin asked pointedly, grabbing the Green Paladin’s waistband and pulling them back down to the floor gby it.

“Ah, yes, of course.” the altean chuckled, rubbing the back of his head. The Green Paladin grumbled, but made no move to stand again.

“So, what is Marmora, if not a name?” the Black Paladin prompted.

“Well, I’m not entirely certain.” the advisor admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “I was never much of a linguist, you see. Not like Maremra and Queen Laura were.”

“Well, give it your best guess, and Pidge can confirm or correct it once they get to that word in learning the language.” the Black Paladin said, laying a hand on the advisor’s shoulder.

“Well, if I’m remembering rightly, it means devotion; to a person, a country, a cause...” he trailed off, and the Blue Paladin made a wordless noise which was almost happy.

“That’s _adorable_.” he stated.

“It’s... fitting.” Kolivan said after a few ticks. Their organisation had been founded in memory of the ancient King and his descendants, and even ten thousand deca-phoebs later they lived on in that memory.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit where credit is due, this was greatly inspired by [this tumblr post](http://gabrielsthighz.tumblr.com/post/164040081013/).


End file.
